Trump Planning "Economy Crippling" Sanctions Against Turkey Over S-400 Purchase

With Turkey's purchase of the Russia S-400 missile-defense system looking like a done deal, the Trump Administration, which claims it already made Ankara its 'best offer' on the US Patriot missile-defense system, is trading the carrot for the stick and, in a non-too-subtle message to Erdogan and his senior advisors, warned that, if Turkey goes ahead with the purchase, the US will drive Turkey's nascent defense industry into ruin with CAATSA, according to an article published on “ZeroHedge.3” by Tyrel Durden.

Punitive packages

Just days after Turkish officials warned that the S-400 purchase was as good as done, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Trump is feeling 'bipartisan' pressure from Congressional leaders to impose CAATSA sanctions against Turkey, and the administration has devised three plans for retaliation upon Turkish ignoring for the warnings.

Since technically any country that buys defense equipment from Russia is eligible for American sanctions, Congressional leaders are reportedly arguing that there's no legal reason to excuse Turkey from the sanctions.

The results of the punitive measures

The last time Trump took an aggressive tack with Turkey, he came away with the win: everybody who insists that punitive tariffs don't work should first remember Turkey's decision to release pastor Andrew Brunson, made after Washington doubled metal tariffs on the country in August and slapped sanctions on two senior government officials. The result? Brunson was released shortly afterward. And Trump is hoping the strategy will work again, though, so far at least, Turkey has shown no indication that it plans to back down until now.

Spike the punch

The US has been considering possible sanctions for well over a year as it became clear Turkey wasn’t going to back down. A leading proponent was Wess Mitchell, the assistant secretary of State for European affairs who stepped down earlier this year.

Mitchell said of the S-400 purchase in Senate testimony in June 2018. “This has the potential to spike the punch, We can’t be any clearer than saying that both privately and publicly, that a decision on S-400 will qualitatively change the U.S.-Turkish relationship in a way that would be very difficult to repair.”

Turkish ambition to split Trump off from the rest of his administration

Yet Turkey has so far refused to back down. Part of the country’s calculation, according to people familiar with the matter and outside experts, is that Erdogan believes he can split Trump off from the rest of his administration and persuade him that buying the S-400 isn’t a big problem.

According to three informed sources , the most severe package under discussion between officials at the National Security Council and the State and Treasury departments would all but cripple the already troubled Turkish economy.

Partial targeting

The suggestion with the most support for now is to target several companies in Turkey’s key defense sector under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA, which targets entities doing business with Russia. Such sanctions would effectively sever those companies from the U.S. financial system, making it almost impossible for them to buy American components or sell their products in the U.S.

Last hope

Lately, the Turkish lira weakened against the American Dollar on the disappointing sanctions news. But there's still the G-20 summit in Osaka where Erdogan is reportedly hoping he can speak to Trump alone and split him off from the rest of his advisors, like he did when he convinced Trump to pull American troops from Syria.